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| Name: |
lotowner
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| Subject: |
A Must Read
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Date:
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11/4/2009 8:31:22 PM
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From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
This is good....
From the Sand Pit It's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River , watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my a&% every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bas%$#@. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water.. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement..
It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I %$#@ into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie %$#@! through his frontal lobe. But you know me, I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit s&^% hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.
I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns... actual, living Huns.. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do.. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky..
I'm freezing my a&% off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban 'smart..' They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is 'cunning.' The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines..They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart... Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.
They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.
OK, enough.. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at it.
Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bull%$#@ and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here, because you have no idea what we're doing, and really, you don't want to know. We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.
You wanna help? Buy Bonds America .
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
Source?
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Date:
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11/4/2009 9:30:46 PM
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I think it reads like someone's creative writing assignment with a political ax to grind.
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| Name: |
lotowner
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| Subject: |
Source?
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Date:
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11/5/2009 6:39:25 AM
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Come on now! Do you think that our Marines are incapable of writing in detail what the conditions are in Afghanistan. If not a Marine, this individual has been there before. The descriptions are too real. I personally have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this letter. The source was very reputable.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Source?
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Date:
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11/5/2009 8:04:32 AM
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To me, it rings true… in the main. I doubt it was written “on location.” Probably written on returning either to base camp or home… say R&R or redeployment. A fighting man would have such feelings about the enemy, though under leadership would not take actual face to face confrontation to the extreme he submits (Geneva Convention applies here). His depiction of the desperation of the Pak-Afghan people is accurate. The Taliban have co-opted the religion to convince the regional population… AND THEMSELVES… that their violent methods are acceptable to Allah. The civilian killings, by drone and air delivered systems, is a) because they hide behind and live among civilians and b) because it exploits the world media for their propaganda purposes. That region has NO resources. There is no escape from the misery except death. Death by combat or religious zeal is preferable… more honorable… than death by starvation.
We will leave them as we found them. There will be no democracy. There will be no religious freedom. There will be no life or liberty… and the pursuit of happiness is impossible. It is true – there is no reliable government – only the law of a violent religion and tribal/family honor.
Pak-Afghan people are as the scorpions among which the soldier reports he is sitting. The scorpions were there before he came and they will be there after he leaves... and his being there will have had no effect on their fate.
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| Name: |
architect
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| Subject: |
So?
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Date:
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11/5/2009 8:10:04 AM
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Do we stay or go?
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So if it is such a reliable source, why can't you say where it came from?
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
So?
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Date:
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11/5/2009 9:22:24 AM
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Did you notice that I pointed out that the Pak-Afghan region has NO resources? That means no indigenous source of income. That would drive a need for importing money. Al Qaeda has money and needs secrecy and shelter for its operations. Those mountainous regions controlled by the Taliban represent just the sort of rugged remoteness that suits Osama bin Laden’s operation… though I suspect he’s been dead for a few years.
If the Taliban harbors terrorists as a trade, they must accept the risks associated with that trade. The innocent civilians are fodder in the financial scheme of things. The predator surveillance/weapons platform (accessorized with our recon marine painting targets from a distance with his laser) is a big problem for the Taliban/al Qaeda alliance. So, it is convenient for the miserable civilians to be martyred in the media. It’s just another bloody overhead cost.
Hornets must live in a colony. It is symbiotic. Terrorists must return to their colony. But, we keep knocking down the hive. They keep moving the hive.
I suspect it is irrelevant to the Taliban about al Qaeda’s global jihad… regional misery obscures global thinking… as long as the money keeps coming to the Taliban. If you aren’t familiar with "Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs", now would be a good time to Google it. Unlike the Iraqis and Iranians, the Pak-Afghan’s are at the bottom level of the triangle.
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| Name: |
Yankee06
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| Subject: |
Source
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Date:
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11/5/2009 10:41:58 AM
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-Well the source is an old one. I first read this letter back in 2001. It was written by some guy called Saucy Jim/Jack/or John, I can't remember exactly anymore. It was written shortly after the invasion and was reportedly from one of those special teams trying to track down Osama.
-The letter became quite an internet sensation for a couple of weeks, as one of teh first insights of a ground pounder.
-However, if I remember correctly, it was also one of the instances that lead to the belief that Snopes had a leftist agenda, because they came out against the letter as a phoney because they couldn't prove that it was true (..need a little Logic 101 here????). In any case there were arguments over contested details.
-as an old soldier, it rang true to me.
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| Name: |
green,ed
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| Subject: |
Source
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Date:
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11/5/2009 11:51:29 AM
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Why does the source matter.Why are you always so cynical?
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Source
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Date:
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11/5/2009 1:54:06 PM
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The source matters if the intel is old. If you think you reading current events (as did I), and you respond in the present, then you are smearing the chronological accuracy. If the "letter" was written during the invasion phase, and here we are half a decade later, and I responded in the context of Obama’s (in)decision… and it is not germane.
Regardless, the miserable political conditions, violence, poverty, and illiteracy prevail; and will do so despite the meddling of foreign governments and organizations (including al Qaeda). We should be addressing the military goals only, that is to deny sanctuary for terrorists.
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
Kerplonk!
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Date:
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11/5/2009 4:38:08 PM
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That's me falling over in disbelief that we agree, including with your post further down. ;-)
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| Name: |
water_watcher
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| Subject: |
we know what you would do !
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Date:
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11/5/2009 6:50:33 PM
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Cut and run. Then lets negotiate with terrorists. Maybe we can reason with people that will blow themselves up for their cause.
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
You are wrong
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Date:
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11/5/2009 7:03:35 PM
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I would not cut and run. But, I would give serious consideration to what our political military objective is, and how best to accomplish it. I would never be cavalier with the lives of our young men and woman serving our country, nor would I put the defense of our country in jepordy by waging an unwinable war. And I would be concerned about the $$$ cost of war, given the financial state of our country.
It's not some kind of video game -- it's real lives and real money, with real consequences.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Cut and Run
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Date:
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11/6/2009 8:28:26 AM
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…don’t you hate that phrase? We have to move away from nation building in the instant that we see the natives aren’t buying it. Nation building by western cultures, imposed on Islamic cultures works as well trying to force feed pureed spinach. How many times does the baby have to gag and spit it out before you quit?
“…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has as much meaning to them as “jihad” has for us. In fact, they regard our concept as the road to hell. We are viewed as rich, fat hedonists and a threat to their families and religion. They are acquainted with violence and accustomed to the necessity for it. We force-feed democracy… they force-feed jihad.
We are arrogant to believe they are going to swallow. They are patiently standing around in their own blood. History tells them that we will go away… and we will.
That being said, we should pursue the military objective only. Predators and smart bombs which arrive unannounced are something they truly understand. It is about this EFFECTIVE technique of warfare that they scream the loudest. The part about innocent civilians is irrelevant. They offer up their wives and children regularly while dealing with each other… it is considered martyrdom… honor… or some other sort of religious rationalization. However, the lives of innocents are a propaganda tool useful against those in the Western world with the quaint attachment to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
Cut and Run
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Date:
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11/6/2009 9:22:09 AM
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You are right. And I don't think the majority of Americans understand this. We don't have the stomach for collateral damage and they know this. They don't expect to be happy in this life -- that's for after one is dead. They don't want a strong central government.
I saw an interview the other night. The interviewee was an Afghan man. He said that "you (the US) and the Taliban are fighting each other and we (the Afghans) get crushed in the middle."
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| Name: |
MartiniMan
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| Subject: |
Cut and Run
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Date:
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11/6/2009 4:45:22 PM
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MAJ and Hound. I know the conventional wisdom is the concept of a representative republic is impossible for a country like Afghanistan. I am struck by that view given the original elections and even the recent, albeit defective elections. There seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm despite the significant danger voting represented. There appears to me at least a genuine desire on the part of the people to have a say in their federal government.
While I am not suggesting they are the same I am wondering if you look at the history of Japan prior to WWII it was a monarchy and post WWII has functioned as a democratic country. In your view is it totally beyond the realm of possible that at some point Afghanistan could have a reasonably functioning democracy?
If you look back historically the prognostications of people not being able to accept or operate as a democracy has been proven wrong. Maybe Islam totally precludes it but it seems to be working better in Iraq (albeit with a lot of support from us). I am just not so pessimistic that these people can't desire freedom because it is innate to us and under the right circumstances could develop. Why are you so pessimistic? And please don't tell me "They've been fighting for a thousand years, etc." Representative republics are relatively new to most of the world that for thousands of years operated as monarchies, dictatorships, etc. If they can change why can't the Middle East?
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Cut and Run
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Date:
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11/8/2009 2:08:50 PM
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1) WE: Freedom for the people ISLAM: But, not the women.
2) Watch carefully what happens in Iraq after we leave.
3) Afghanistan is at the lowest level of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. They depend upon the government. You need to get off the bottom before you can understand democracy.
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